Hello, Subscribers!
Most of you will have some recollection of our having run an essay from Grant Williams’ Fin de Siècle anthology post a couple of months past. This was the February 2025 edition of his Things That Make You Go Hmmm… (TTMYGH…) newsletter, and the entry we republished was the work of Sir Steven Wilkinson who took the occasion to openly meditate on, to begin with, several questions germane to the rise of artificial intelligence. For those of you who would like to re-visit that Guest Haymaker, we’ve linked to it at the end of this introduction.
And speaking of introductions, that’s precisely what we’re running in full as this week’s Haymaker.
Our plan is to republish at least a couple more entries from Fin de Siècle throughout this month and perhaps one partway through June. In advance of that, we think it best to let Grant’s words do what he meant for them to do: thoroughly set the stage for these illuminating essays. (A portion of this also appeared in our lead-in to the Wilkinson Guest Haymaker.)
As it is published under a highly premium subscription model, TTMYGH… editions are generally seen and read by a relatively exclusive set within the high-finance community. It’s for this reason that we are quite grateful to Grant for his continued generosity in allowing us to share a selection of his Fin de Siècle essays with our own readership.
And now, please enjoy some introductory material from the mind of my great mate Grant Williams!
David “The Haymaker” Hay
Fin de Siècle
Grant Williams (Excerpted from his February 2025 Things That Make You Go Hmmm… newsletter edition)
Sixteen years ago, in a very different world, I sat down at my desk in Singapore and stared at a blank Word document for what seemed like an eternity. Once I’d composed my thoughts into some semblance of order, I began to write what would ultimately become the first edition of Things That Make You Go Hmmm...